Sleeping
by Northlight
Summary: How has Brin changed since her return to Manticore? [Post Hit a Sista Back]


Sleeping (1/1)

_ Title: Sleeping (1/1)  
Summary: Brin considers the changes Manticore has made within her.  
Spoilers: Cold Comfort, Hit a Sista Back.  
Characters: Brin, Max, Tinga.  
Rating: PG13.  
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.  
Date: May 15, 2001._

Before, when she was something less than what she was meant to be, she had owned an apartment. One day in September, she had purchased a can of pale yellow paint. She had invited Rose over, and the two of them had laughed and splattered paint against each other and had even managed to get the bedroom walls painted. They had changed clothes and wandered into the living room, sunk into the couch, each of them with a glass of bottled water in hand. Rose talked, she had a word for every moment as if loathe to allow a single moment of her life to go by without celebrating it with words. Rose had spent much of that day talking about Greg--she had insisted that the young man liked Brin. Brin had laughed and blushed and shaken her head, delighted with the possibility that Rose could be right, that there was a Rose with whom to talk. 

Rose wanted to be a hairdresser, and she had set her glass on the floor and tugged at Brin's hands. "C'mon, Bonnie," she had pleaded, dark eyes wide and hopeful. Rose had clapped her hands in exaggerated delight when Brin nodded and slid closer to her friend. She had presented Rose her back, closing her eyes as Rose drew a brush down the length of her hair. "You have great hair," Rose had commented enviously. "You really should do more with it," and she had twisted Brin's hair into braids, lifted it into a ponytail, formed locks into gentle spirals around Brin's face. 

There was a teddy bear on Brin's bed, situated against the headboard. She had been given one by the first family who ever took her in. Brin hadn't known what to do with the toy, unused to frivolous extras. The bear had sat untouched on her dresser for weeks until Brin grew comfortable enough with people to allow Emma to tuck her into bed. The woman had caught sight of the bear on the dresser and had taken it, handing it to Brin. "This is Sir Theodore," Emma had introduced them solemnly, laughter in her eyes. "Sir Theodore, this is Cindy. He'll take care of you while you sleep, Cindy," Emma explained, pulling the blankets up over Brin's slight shoulders. 

Sir Theodore the Bear had been small with matted brown fur. His nose was pink and coming unglued on one side. His smile was lopsided. He had looked at Brin with steady brown eyes and no one had ever given her a gift before--even, Brin had thought, one so silly as this. Theodore had been left behind a few short months later, demons still so fresh in her mind that Brin hadn't dared remain in one place for too long. She had passed a store one day and had seen a teddy bear in the window, and it had reminded her of Emma and caring and temporary safety. Brin had hesitated before shrugging. She had gone into the store, paid for the child's toy. She had brought soft grey sentimentality and held it that night as she slept. 

Rose had spotted the last in a long line of bears. She had laughed and teased and on the day Brin called her birthday had shown up with a teddy wearing a big red bow. Rose had glanced around with mock-suspicion before leaning forward to whisper her secret into Brin's ear. "I collect ballerina figurines--don't say a word," Rose had said. She bought Brin a new bear on every occasion which called for a gift so that a long line of stuffed toys lined the floor alongside the wall by Brin's bed. Brin had named the shaggy light brown one with the scowl Zack and Rose had laughed along with her even though she hadn't quite understood--she had always said that Brin had an wonderful laugh. 

Brin had worked in a bookstore, and she had met Greg there. They had flirted over cookbooks and home-repair guides, and Greg had cornered her in the sci. fi. section and asked her on a date. Brin had smiled and nodded her enthusiastic agreement. She had gone home that evening, tearing through her closet in search of something appropriate to wear. Her black sweater had fallen from her shaking hands and Brin had weaved her way to the bathroom, swallowing pills dry. Her body had twitched and jumped, fine lines making their presence known against her flesh. 

"What did they do to you?" Max had demanded, horrified sorrow in her voice. 

Brin could recall that she too had once seen everything twisted around. Manticore had made her remember who and what she was. The outside world had been a dream--something soft and weak--a slow death as she smothered in cotton soft wrappings. Manticore had cut aside the soft padding that had accumulated and filled out the personality of the false-woman she had been. They had exposed varnished surfaces, hard planes and sharp angles and Brin had flexed her fingers and felt the power within deceptively delicate hands. 

Brin had met Rose in a weekend painting class where Rose had sat beside her. Rose had looked at the image Brin was creating, and had respected her for talent and beauty and imagination. Brin had eaten lunch with Greg one day, and she had laughed so hard at one of his stories that she had sprayed a mouthful of soda--and he had laughed and liked her. She could no longer remember why she had let herself be thought of as soft and sweet and normal. Brin no longer understood that there was a world in which destruction was not a necessity. She stood ready in the training room, feet braced apart, hands curled into brutal fists. She had dodged and leapt and sent her foot straight into the stomach of a man she had known as a brother. Pain saw respect born anew--and she was one of them again because she was cold and hard and fierce. 

"They made me remember who I am," Brin had answered Max. She had given herself up to the fight, the feel of her body as it followed the motions it had been created to carry out. Manticore had cut away the soft layers that had been wound about her, and Brin moved quickly and easily, powerful. She recognized the moves Max made, saw that her sister was pressing her way through spun sugar unreality, made slow by the dream she had yet to awaken from. Brin had caught Max's leg, brought her hand down in a hard blow and had watched pain and something darker flare in Max's eyes. She had fallen, open and vulnerable, and she had never truly had a chance. 

Tinga had not understood any more than had Max. "I knew you couldn't be one of them," she had breathed, relief and hope flooding her eyes. The Brin she had once been knew that one did not hurt those one cared about. She had been angered by Rose, by friends and acquaintances who had come before her. Brin had breathed deeply, forced her hands to straighten by her side. That was a weakness, she had bee led to remember--sentimental folly. She had grown up with the feel of solid blows delivered to and by her siblings. Violence was not wrong, nor was it something to be avoided. Violence was a tool to be used to gain an end, to ensure that orders were followed and objectives were met. Tinga had forgotten, spun sugar pink and sticky around her thoughts, and she had believed that murder was a rebellion against order. 

They were sleepwalking--Zack, Tinga, Max, all of them. They were her family, and it ached dull and distant to see them, to know that they were as soft and weak and lost as she had been. They would resist and fight, scream and rage as she dragged them back into wakefulness. She would find them one by one if need be. Brin would save them, make them real again, show them what it meant to be strong. They had mistaken the world beyond Manticore for freedom. They had been seduced by a lie--freedom was in the easy play of violence, in the fulfillment of the needs created in them by instinct and training. They were held captive in the weakness they were forced by weave about themselves, in their demeaning jobs and by unfocused friends and lovers. 

Brin had delivered Tinga into Manticore's hands. Manticore would shear away clinging softness--husband and child and petty choices which masqueraded as freedom. Manticore would whittle her down to Tinga's hard cored reality--skill and training and instinct, the only things which were real and true and necessary. She and Tinga would stand side by side as they once had, heads up, shoulders back, straight-backed. The world outside Manticore had seen them split apart, fractured and scattered across the continent. 

They would be a family again. Brin simply needed to wake them up, shake them out of their hazy dreams so that they stared wide eyed and alert at reality. She could bring them back--she would. They had left Manticore as children their growth had been stunted. Brin had awakened, had been guided into maturity and her full potential. Max had seen, she knew, she had found herself a child in comparison to what Brin had regained. And as an older sibling guided the younger, she would teach them, she would show them how to become what they were meant to be. 

Brin was varnished surfaces, hard planes and sharp angles. She was strong and powerful and for the first time in nearly eleven years, truly _real_ once more. The others would understand soon enough. Manticore was good at stripping away dreams and leaving one bare to steel grey reality. 

~end~ 


End file.
